Position in chronology
HSS 10, 012
About this tablet
A short letter in Old Akkadian from Gasur (the later Nuzi, in northeastern Iraq) during the empire of Akkad, around 2300 BCE. The sender's and recipient's names are broken away, but the message survives: someone is forbidden to approach two named men, Kinussam and Puzur-Suen, without the authorization of the local governor. It is a small window into Sargonic provincial administration, where the governor's explicit order was the gate through which business had to pass.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The opening — who is writing and to whom — is broken off, but the letter's instruction is clear enough: the man in question is not to go in to Kinussam and Puzur-Suen without the governor's approval. He must wait until the governor himself has issued him his orders. In short: no access to these two men, and no action at all, until official authorization comes through.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. [Thus (says) ...] 2. [...] 3. [To ...] 4. [speak]: 5. With[ou]t (the consent of) 6. the governor, 7. to Kinussam 8. and Puzur-Suen 9. he must not go in; 10. until the governor 11. has given him instructions.
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
[en-ma] [...] [a-na ...] [qi2-bi2-ma] ba-[lu?]-um _ensi2_ a-na ki2-nu-us2-sa-am u3 puzur4-suen a e-ru-un a-di3 _ensi2_ la u3-wa-e-ru-usz
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — HSS 10, 012. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (P213278) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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